A few days ago, my dog got into something she shouldn’t have and threw up all over my house. Many times. For an hour straight. Don’t worry, she’s fine now but my sympathy waned pretty fast since this was the second time in a week that this happened. Both times, my husband happened to be out of the house leaving me to be solely in charge of disaster recovery!
When we bought our house six months ago we ordered the most beautiful cream-colored carpet to match our six kids, two dogs and four cats! Yes, we were drunk with new-home-building delirium. That’s our excuse!
It didn’t take long before it was clear that we would need to invest in a good steam cleaner. After a lot of research, we settled on a Bissell upright that was pretty inexpensive and had good consumer reviews.
Well, it pretty much sucked, I’m sorry to say. The carpet got relatively clean but the upright didn’t hold up to the new carpet fiber shedding at all, the machine was heavy and cumbersome and both a pain to prepare and to clean.
After this last week of doggie vomit excitement, that little consumer-devil on my shoulder kept whispering “SpotBot”. I’d seen the commercials. I am pretty sure the devil was sent by the muscle spasms in my back from hunching over using all my muscle to dig the upright into my carpet to really scrub. My back needed a break. What better break than a carpet cleaning machine that claims to do it all while you walk away and even trademarked the phrase “WalkAway”?!?!
So, being the frugal consumer that I am, I did a bit of research. The SpotBot is a hands-free carpet cleaner that runs through a series of cleaning stages (much like a dishwasher) before alerting you that it is finished. It uses an easy-to-fill water and solution tank and empties into an easy-to-empty dirty water tank. It is small and light weight, making it easy to store. In addition to both surface and set-in modes, it also has a manual mode which allows you to clean upholstery and stairs as well as other hard-to-reach areas. I was eventually sold by the plethora of 5-star reviews at a variety of consumer websites. I tore out of the house and up to my local Target, loaded up my cart and rushed home with SpotBot in-arms.
I absolutely hate getting new gadgets only to have to spend an afternoon either building it, study the owner’s manual or making sure it charges for a full 12 hours before use. I’m an instant gratification kind of gal. Let me just say, it was easier than even I was prepared for! There is no putting-together at all. Just take it out of the box, take out the little container, fill it with water and the added solution, plug it in and press “go” (not literally – there are a few options). 3-6 minutes later, my spot was gone. In the time it took to clean my spot, I left the room and sat down to type out and send an email telling all my friends about how I was cleaning my spots while simultaneously writing emails! Ahhh yes, this is a mother’s multi-tasking dream! I suppose I could have gone and done a load of dishes or thrown in a load of wash but that wouldn’t have been as fun or satisfying!
If you are scattered, like I tend to be, don’t despair! When your new best friend is done cleaning, it will let you know with a series of beeps so you can pick it up, move it to a new spot and WalkAway again! This baby keeps even the most ADHD person on task!
When finished, just wrap up the cord and put it away. You don’t have to clean out the dirty water container now; you can do it later. You don’t have to dump the cleaning solution now; you can store it for use later. But when you do need to dump the dirty tank, you simply pick it up and pour it from the spout on top – amazingly easy. And, so far, there are no carpet fibers in my brushes at all! Yay!
What are the downsides to this sweet little robot? The biggest downside is that it “requires” a large amount of cleaning solution compared to a full carpet cleaner. I don’t really get that and plan to play around with reducing the amount of cleaner. I have read reviews of people who have used only hot water on fresh stains successfully so I might try that, too. The only other major downside is, if you can believe this, it does its job too well! It often leaves perfectly clean circles on otherwise dirty carpet making the rest of your floor look pretty nasty! But you can’t blame this baby for being an over-achiever, can you?
For the sweet price of $130, this baby pays for itself in a) professional carpet cleaning bills b) chiropractor appointments after using its upright alternative and c) the cost of having to board your precious pup for puking on your carpet yet again in order to spare your new floor! Seriously, I’m pretty frugal but I’d have gladly paid many times this amount for such a perfect new tool.